Not gonna lie—MailTips felt like one of those “meh” features until I had a user email a decommissioned mailbox and then escalate because “no one replied.” That was the moment I started sprinkling MailTips across our environment like salt on a rainy Bengaluru morning.
Here’s how I set them up, what tripped me up, and what I’d do differently next time.
Why I Even Bothered
We’ve got a mix of shared mailboxes, service accounts, and a few “do-not-reply” setups. Users kept emailing them like they were real people. I figured a quick MailTip like “This mailbox isn’t monitored” might save us a few tickets. Turns out—it did.
My Setup (EAC First, Then PowerShell When I’m Tired of Clicking)
Step 1: EAC Route
I usually start with the Exchange Admin Center. It’s slower, but good for one-offs.
- Go to Recipients > Mailboxes
- Pick the mailbox
- Scroll to Others (why is it always buried?)
- Click Manage mail tip
- Type something short like “This mailbox is not monitored”
- Hit Save
That’s it. Outlook and OWA users will see it when they add the recipient.
Side note: If you go over 175 characters, Exchange won’t yell at you—it’ll just silently ignore your message. Ask me how I know.
Step 2: PowerShell (When I’ve Got a List)
If I’m updating more than a couple mailboxes, I flip to PowerShell:
Set-Mailbox -Identity "alerts@domain.com" -MailTip "Automated alerts only. Do not reply."Then I verify:
Get-Mailbox -Identity "alerts@domain.com" | Format-List MailTipI’ve baked this into a few onboarding scripts too—especially for shared mailboxes.
Things That Tripped Me Up
- HTML Wrapping: Exchange wraps your MailTip in
<html><body>...</body></html>. Doesn’t affect display, but it shows up in PowerShell. If you’re parsing output or syncing with third-party tools, it might mess with your logic. - Silent Failures: Like I said, go past 175 characters and Exchange just shrugs. No error, no warning. I had one MailTip that looked perfect in the GUI but never showed up. Took me 30 minutes to realize it was 178 characters with tags included.
What I’d Do Differently
- Keep MailTips short and punchy. No one reads a paragraph in a tooltip.
- Standardize them. I now use “This mailbox is not monitored” for all shared mailboxes. Keeps it clean.
- Test in OWA. Some older Outlook clients don’t show MailTips reliably.
Final Thoughts
MailTips aren’t sexy, but they’re useful. They’re like those little sticky notes you leave on your monitor—quiet reminders that save you from dumb mistakes.
Ever had a MailTip save your bacon—or completely fail you? Drop your story. I’m always curious how other admins wrangle this stuff.
💬 Discussion on “Step-by-Step Guide to Configuring Custom MailTips” 2
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